Who would’ve thought death could smell so good? Lathan maneuvered the Fat Bob down the curvy country road. The aroma of autumn streamed over his face. Decaying leaves, emaciated grass, burning wood. The best-smelling time of the year was full of the scent of death.
Death. He should’ve stayed at the presentation, waited outside to talk to Dr. Jonah when it was over. Why hadn’t that twenty-four-karat thought occurred an hour ago? Thirty-eight kills by the Strategist, and Lathan had fucking walked away from his chance to prevent number thirty-nine. The real kick in the ass—he only worked cold cases. How many active cases were the work of the Strategist?
His insides turned into a cavernous tomb. Guilt echoed off the walls.
He opened the throttle on his Fat Bob and surged forward at a reckless speed, full concentration locked on navigating the twisting roads. Countryside blurred by him. Bad thoughts left behind, replaced by the thrill.
A tow truck parked in the middle of the narrow pavement forced him to slow.
Vehicles rarely traveled this far out into the country. Probably horny teenagers, frantic for a place to screw, had broken down and needed a tow. He skirted the edge of the pavement and started to pass.
The lollipop-red Miata on the other side of the tow truck grabbed his attention for only a second, but the woman standing in front of the car, waving her shoes at him, completely captured him.
Her skyscraper legs ended in a pair of miniscule black shorts. The neckline of her shirt plunged to the valley between her breasts. And those shiny black shoes she gestured with were hooker-sexy in her hands—he didn’t dare imagine what they’d look like on her feet.
Pressure built inside his torso like a dangerous case of indigestion. The air flowing over his face stung like a charge of electric current. His grip on the handlebars faltered. The bike wobbled. He felt unsteady as a kid without training wheels.
When he drove by her, the pungent scent of garlic permeated the air. Fear. Fear always stunk.
Was she frightened of his appearance? Typical reaction. One he counted on to keep people away. He steadied the bike, continued forward without increasing his speed.
Something was peculiar about her. Something felt peculiar within him.
No SMs.
No SMs tugged at his concentration or battled for his attention.
It was like they never existed, like he was…normal. Normal. Almost. He could still smell her fear—her emotions; he just didn’t get any SMs from her.
He had to meet her, discover what made her different from every other human being.
He gripped the brake. Hard. His Fat Bob fished around on the pavement. He turned the bike in a tight U-ey in the middle of the road and saw what scared her. A guy crouched in the ditch, nearly hidden by her car, creeping toward her as stealthy as a hawk stalking a rabbit.
“Behind you!” As he shouted the words—words he wasn’t certain she could hear over the roar of his bike—the guy sprang. Grabbed her arm. She whirled around, awkward in her movements, her limbs loose like a rag-doll ballerina. She pushed at the guy, tried to pull away from him, but the asshole shook her, shoved her. She fell to the pavement, landed on her ass and elbows, shoes bucking from her hands. Pain hacked across her face.
Every muscle, every tendon, every cell inside Lathan clenched. Fury zipped along his neuro pathways, then outward to his extremities. He shot forward on his Fat Bob, closing the distance between them in mere seconds. He didn’t even stop the bike, just dropped it and launched himself at the asshole, tackling him, driving him back until the car stopped their momentum.
Underneath him, the asshole’s muscles strained like a slingshot pulled back, ready to snap. Lathan tensed, bracing for the blow, the swing toward his ribs the only move open. “Go ahead. Fucking try it.”
The guy punched. Lathan blocked, then mashed his fist into the guy’s ribs. Lathan stepped back, watched the guy fold over, clutching his side. A plug to the ribs hurt, but it wasn’t on the scale of a knockout. Someone who buckled from a simple rib shot probably only picked on women and the weak. When confronted with someone he couldn’t easily dominate, this guy pussied out.
Lathan turned to the woman sprawled on the road.
She didn’t quite wear the holy-shit expression he expected, but she gaped at him with wide doe-eyes the color of the sky on a full-moon night. Flecks of gray twinkled in the irises. Her eyes drew him in, engulfing him in their depths. He swore he glimpsed a shard of heaven.